


a long way from the playground

by heklin



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, boys being dumb and awkward, jared has a cat named angel and two moms, uhhh what else, written with mlb!evan in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 10:55:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heklin/pseuds/heklin
Summary: Jared shrugs one shoulder. “I can do fake dating.”Evan blinks. “What?”“I’ve read my fair share of fanfics. Remember that Drarry phase I went through freshman year?”“What?”Jared sighs heavily in that annoying way of his, and looks at Evan with exaggeratedly wide eyes as if he’s talking to a toddler. “You want me to be your fake boyfriend to make Heidi happy.”





	a long way from the playground

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this back in april, found it in my google docs yesterday, tidied it up aaaand send post
> 
> (title is from 18 by one direction)

It all starts when Jared shows up at Evan’s front door with his cat scooped up under one arm and a bag of chips under the other, announcing that there’s a Harry Potter marathon on ABC and they’re going to watch it.

Or technically, you could say it all _really_ starts a few hours after that, when Evan’s mom walks into the living room. The lights are off, and the two of them are on the couch, with Jared’s legs stretched out over Evan’s lap. She takes one look at them and breaks into a huge smile.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt! I just wanted to ask if you’re staying over for dinner, Jared.”

“Sure, if it isn’t too much trouble,” Jared says, because Jared is good at being polite when he has to be, and also just good at talking to adults in general.

“Of course not!” Evan’s mom exclaims. As she leaves the room, she adds something that sounds suspiciously like, “You guys are so cute.”

Evan thinks about that comment all throughout The Goblet of Fire. And then all throughout dinner, because his mom keeps shooting him weird happy looks over slices of pizza whenever Jared says something. Evan’s starting to get a little freaked out.

Sometime after eleven, Jared says he should head home, gathers his stuff and starts out of the living room. “Hey, don’t forget Angel,” Evan says, picking up Jared’s cat clumsily.

“Ugh,” Jared groans as he takes her from him. “You sure you don’t wanna keep her?”

Evan laughs. “I don’t think Liz would appreciate me stealing your cat.”

“True.” Jared looks down at Angel and makes a face. “For some reason, Mom-Liz loves you, you dumb cat.”

“I like how you act like you hate her,” Evan remarks, reaching out to pet Angel on the head.

“You think I’m _acting_?” Jared says with a snort. “I hate this monster. She’s ruining my reputation.”

Angel bats at his face with one paw as if to protest this.

“Your what?” Evan says, suppressing a laugh. “Then why do you take her everywhere you go?”

“I do not—” Jared starts to say, then seems to remember that he literally brought Angel with him just to watch movies with Evan, and cuts himself off and shrugs like, _you got me there._ Evan grins. “Whatever. See you tomorrow, bro.”

Evan waves from the front door as Jared gets into his car. Things have been really good between them since the beginning of the school year. Last year, Jared always emphasized that they were only friends so that his parents paid for his car insurance. The year before that, and also freshman year, he avoided Evan like the plague. Middle school was weird for them because Jared alternated between acting like Evan was his best friend and acting like he had never seen him in his life. (Then again, middle school is a really weird time for everyone, so Evan doesn’t know if he should count it.)

But since the first day of their senior year, Jared has been consistently pretty decent to him. He regularly comes over for movie marathons. He texts Evan memes at three in the morning.

He acts like he _cares_ about Evan.

It’s nice.

Evan’s mom is in her room when he goes upstairs. “Did Jared leave already?” she asks.

Evan peeks his head in the doorway. She’s in bed with a book and a mug of tea, and she has that same huge grin on her face that she’s had on all night.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, then, “You’re—you’ve been acting weird. Why are you acting weird?”

“What? I’m not acting weird, Evan,” she says with a decidedly _weird_ laugh.

“You totally are!” Evan can feel his face heating up. He’s not used to confronting his mom. “You’ve been smiling like that since Jared came over, and you—you said something like ‘you guys are so cute,’ which, what does that even mean?”

His mom laughs again, this time more genuine, and closes the book. “I’m just happy for you, honey, that’s all.”

“What?”

“You know!” she exclaims. “You and Jared?” When he shakes his head, still confused beyond belief, her face softens a little. “Come on, you don’t have to hide it from me.”

“What?” he says again, because he has literally no idea what is going on.

“Oh god.” She sits up fully. “Did I do anything to make you think I wouldn’t—that I wouldn’t support you dating a boy?”

“ _What?”_ Evan repeats for the third time. His voice comes out about ten pitches too high.

He hasn’t come out to his mom yet. She doesn’t know he’s bi.

Except...apparently she does.

“Because I promise, Evan, it doesn’t matter to me at all,” she continues. “I love you, okay? No matter what.”

Evan’s legs are shaky. His heart pounds.

He lets himself into the room and sits down on the end of the bed. “Okay,” he says quietly. “How did you, um—how did you know?”

“You and Jared,” she says again, and _why the hell does she keep saying that,_ why does Evan feel so out of the loop?

“I don’t…” he starts meekly.

She puts her hand on top of his. “I _know_ you two are dating.”

“Wait, what?” He snatches his hand away, getting to his feet abruptly. “No no no,” he says in a rush. “You—you have it all wrong, we’re not—I mean _I’m_ not, I don’t even— _Jared?”_

His mom sighs. “Evan, honey, come on. I’m happy for you!”

Evan turns in the doorway to look at her, really look at her—and she _does_ seem so happy for him. Genuinely happy. It’s such a change from the usual sad and worried looks she shoots his way whenever she thinks he isn’t looking. It’s so different from the fake cheerful mask she always has on around him. She’s always so tired, and it tends to show on her face, making her look much older than she really is.

She never asked for this. Never signed up for having to raise a kid with severe anxiety and a whole multitude of other issues. She deserves better.

When Evan was a kid, he had a problem with compulsive lying.

And this...well.

The lie is all set up for him already. It would be so easy to just go along with it.

So he does.

 

-

 

He somehow completely forgets about everything until he sees Jared at school the next morning.

“Oh my god,” he says as Jared makes his way over, because _fuck,_ what has he _done?_

“Hey,” Jared greets, grabbing the straps of his backpack.

“Hey,” Evan echoes, and then suddenly can’t bring himself to look at him. He busies himself putting textbooks into his locker and then taking them back out. Puts them in, takes them out. Rearranges things. Re-rearranges things.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jared asks.

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Evan says, and then winces at how shrill his voice sounds. When he shuts his locker and turns, Jared is giving him an unimpressed look.

“Dude, your face is super fucking red.”

“I have to get to class,” Evan says, trying to get by, but Jared blocks his way.

“There’s five minutes till the bell rings, and your first period is like right there,” he says, and Evan thinks fleetingly that it’s kind of weird or maybe surreal that Jared knows where all his classes are, “so tell me why you’re hyperventilating.”

“I’m not—”

“Hey asshole, I’ve known you since first grade. You can’t lie to me no matter how hard you try.”

Which is absolutely _not_ true. Evan has lied to Jared plenty of times. And gotten away with it maybe eighty percent of the time. Jared never picked up on all the little white lies, but he always figured out the bigger ones sooner or later.

(Usually later. Like he would bring up something Evan said when they were kids, and Evan would turn beet-red and stutter a lot and then Jared would yell incredulously, “You lied about _that_ too?”)

“Okay, um.” Evan ducks his head, throws out his hands and gestures vaguely, trying to figure out how to explain his colossal fuck-up, then blurts out in a rush, “I told my mom that we’re dating? And so now she thinks that we’re dating.”

“Because...you told her that we’re dating,” Jared states after a beat of silence.

“Yes, yeah,” Evan mumbles. “But I um, I only told her that because she was under the impression that we already _were_ dating. She thinks that we’ve been together for like a month.”

“Huh,” says Jared. His eyebrows are raised, but other than that his expression is unreadable.

“I’m so sorry,” Evan says, feeling horrible and guilty and thinking _he’s going to hate you now he’s not going to want to be your friend anymore because why_ would _he after this, after you dragged him into this mess?_ He has to explain, he has to make it okay, he— “I should have told her the truth but she just seemed so fucking— _happy_ and I felt so bad for making her worry about me all the time, and like, I haven’t seen her smile like that in _so_ long and...I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s fine, dude,” Jared says. There’s a weird smile playing at his lips.

Evan stares at him. “You seem—really calm about this.”

“Yup,” Jared says, popping the P.

“Why aren’t you mad?” Evan asks. He’s breathless and shaky and sweaty and. And. “You should hate me. You should be freaking out, why—how are you so _calm_ right now?”

“ _Please_ don’t have a panic attack, I don’t have a paper bag on me.”

“I’m not having a panic attack!” Evan hisses, then looks around to make sure no one is giving him weird looks or whispering about him or judging him or _something._ “Why aren’t you pissed off?”

Jared shrugs one shoulder. “I can do fake dating.”

Evan blinks. “What?”

“I’ve read my fair share of fanfics. Remember that Drarry phase I went through freshman year?”

“ _What?”_

Jared sighs heavily in that annoying way of his, and looks at Evan with exaggeratedly wide eyes as if he’s talking to a toddler. “You want me to be your fake boyfriend to make Heidi happy.”

“That’s not what I was—” Evan stops as he fully realizes what Jared is saying, and then realizes that this is literally the best possible outcome to the shitty situation he created.

He might not have to crush his mom’s heart anytime soon after all.

“So that means you’ll—you’ll do it?”

Jared adjusts his glasses and nods. “For two grand.”

“Two _thousand_ dollars?” Evan squeaks incredulously.

“Five hundred.”

“I—I can give you twenty?”

“Fine,” Jared says with a grin, snapping his fingers, “but you’re a dick.”

 

-

 

At first, being Jared’s fake boyfriend is not that much of a change from being just friends with him. Mainly because they don’t have to act like they’re dating unless they’re around Evan’s mom, and Jared hasn’t even been over since their Harry Potter marathon. So things are pretty uneventful so far.

Then Alana happens.

“Oh my gosh, you guys!” She exclaims, slamming her lunch bag down onto the table. Evan jerks, startled, and his pretzel sticks go flying everywhere. Jared looks up from his phone and cracks up laughing. Alana just beams at them so hard that it’s kind of freaking Evan out. “When were you planning on telling us?”

“Telling us what,” says Zoe, taking the seat across from Evan.

Evan gives her a look like, _hell if I know_.

Connor shows up then too, dumping his bag onto the table and collapsing into his usual spot next to Alana.

“Evan and Jared are dating,” Alana announces. Both Murphy siblings seem to do a double take.

“What?” says Zoe. Her eyes are narrowed, but she’s sort of grinning. “For real?”

“Yes,” Alana says as she goes through her lunch bag, with the calm, matter-of-fact-ness of someone who does not know they’ve just caused one of their friends to have a panic attack. (That friend being Evan. He can’t quite seem to catch his breath.) “Ms. Hansen told me yesterday.”

_Oh fuck._

Alana is an intern at the hospital, and has developed a weird sort of friendship with Evan’s mom.

He should have known this would happen, or prepared for it or something. Fuck.

“No no no, we’re not really—” he starts to protest, then cuts himself off with a yelp as Jared delivers a swift kick to his shin under the table.

When Evan turns his head, ready to ask what the hell that was for, Jared is saying with a sheepish sort of grin, “Sorry, we were gonna tell you guys eventually, but you know Evan...he was nervous about people knowing.”

The conversation continues, but Evan can’t really seem to focus anymore because he’s so incredibly confused. Zoe asks about how he and Jared got together, and that’s when he mumbles something about going to the bathroom and exits the cafeteria as quickly as he can without looking like something’s off.

He’s been standing in the empty hallway for maybe thirty seconds, forehead pressed to the cold metal of a locker door, when Jared comes out and asks, “You okay?”

Evan straightens up. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“Why did you lie to Alana?”

“Why’d you lie to your mom?” Jared shoots back.

Evan’s cheeks burn. “I—Jared!”

Jared crosses his arms. “Okay, genius. We tell Alana that we’re not actually dating, and she tells Heidi, which ruins everything.”

“Oh,” Evan says weakly, feeling kind of dumb. “Okay. But—but we can tell other people, right?”

“Nope.”

“Not even Zoe?”

“Dude, she would tell Alana, like, immediately, and Alana would tell Heidi, and then we’re back at square one.”

“Connor,” Evan says almost desperately.

Jared sort of scoffs. “Connor tells Zoe, who tells Alana—”

“Who tells my mom,” Evan finishes. Aaand that’s pretty much all the friends they have. “Shit. Now we have to pretend we’re dating at _school_ too!”

“Well yeah,” Jared says. There’s an unspoken, _duh._

Evan kind of can’t help but feel like there’s a huge joke going on and he’s the only one not in on it.

 

-

 

At lunch the very next day, Jared puts his hand on top of Evan’s.

And when Evan asks if anyone understood the chemistry homework, Jared turns to him, eyes shining like he’s enjoying the fuck out of this, wags his eyebrows and says, “I understand the chemistry that’s happening right here,” and Evan’s palms go hot as he realizes Jared is being _flirty._ In an awfully corny, purposeful way, but still.

(Immediately after Jared says it, Connor puts his head in his hands and groans. Jared flips him off cheerfully.)

He also gives Evan these...looks. Looks that are probably supposed to be, like, loving or whatever, but Evan just thinks it’s weird because it’s _all_ weird, okay, and he can’t get past the fact that Jared’s actually going through with this.

Evan also can’t really bring himself to try and play up the relationship as well, because he’s so painfully _awkward_ and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act without it coming off unnatural.

Alana seems to be eating it right up, though, so at least Jared is making up for that. She does chinhands at them all throughout lunch, and when they see her in the hallway later and Jared grabs Evan’s hand again, she smiles so wide Evan thinks she might pull a muscle in her face.

 

-

 

“Okay,” Jared says as he shuts the door behind him. “We need to practice this shit.”

They’re in Jared’s room, and Evan is hovering anxiously next to the desk. “What?” he says.

(It feels like that’s all he ever says anymore nowadays.)

“Like, PDA, dude. You go red literally every single time I hold your hand or something. This,” Jared gestures between the two of them, “isn’t convincing if you’re acting like a blushing virgin all the time.”

As if on cue, Evan feels his face heat up. He presses his hands to his cheeks, trying to will himself to be calm and chill for _once_ in his goddamn life. “You’re right,” he mumbles. “Sorry, I’m—I’m just nervous.”

“You always are,” Jared says pointedly, throwing his backpack down on the floor and flopping onto the saucer chair by the window. (Evan doesn’t know if that’s what the type of chair is actually called, but it’s what Jared has referred to it as since they were very little.) “You’re always perpetually nervous about everything. Always Perpetually Nervous About Everything would be a great title for your autobiography.”

“Right,” Evan mutters. He hesitates, then pulls out the desk chair and sits down. “Just, I’ve never dated anyone before—”

“Neither have I!”

“No, I _know,_ but that’s different because you still have experience and stuff, and I don’t, so I’m scared I’m gonna look stupid and ruin everything and you’ll make fun of me, or like I’m worried about my hands being too sweaty because they’re always sweaty but I feel like if you’re holding my hand, it’s gonna be ten times _more_ sweaty than usual and it’ll definitely gross you out but you won’t be able to say anything about it or—or let go, because you have to keep _pretending_ —”

Jared has his laptop open in front of him, and his voice is strained when he interrupts, “Dude, I don’t have— _experience_ and stuff.”

Evan wrings his hands and resists the very strong urge to say _what?_ for the fiftieth or so time in the last few days. “But what about, um, that guy from camp? Mark?”

“Oh my god, Evan,” Jared laughs, and Evan raises his eyebrows and smiles back in a confused sort of way. “It was _not_ Mark. He’s like the straightest guy on the face of the earth.”

“Matt?” Evan tries again.

“Yeah,” Jared says slowly. He looks down at the keyboard, tapping his fingers against the mousepad quickly. Evan’s pretty sure the laptop isn’t even on. “Uh, I lied about that. We didn’t really get to second base.”

Evan probably shouldn’t feel so relieved all of a sudden, but he does. “How far _did_ you get?”

“I kissed him, and he kissed back for like a split second and then pulled away and was all like, ‘I’m not into guys, sorry.’ Which was whatever. But then when I got home I heard from Sabrina that he hooked up with Neal Harris. So.”

Just like that, the relief is replaced by something much sadder. Jared’s face is all scrunched up and he won’t meet Evan’s eye, still tapping away even though Evan _knows_ now that the laptop isn’t even really on because there’s no reflection of the screen on Jared’s glasses. “Shit, Jared, I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have...”

“Jeez, would you quit with the apologies? It’s not _your_ fault Matt’s a douchebag.”

Evan bites his tongue to keep from saying sorry again.

“So _any-fucking-ways,_ ” Jared continues, pushing his glasses up. He seems to take a deep breath, then finally looks back up at Evan, grinning again. The facade he always has up is back in place. Secured. “We’re gonna talk about boundaries and consent and shit, and then we’re gonna practice doing...said shit. So you don’t make a total fool out of yourself like you’re worried about. Sound good?”

Evan opens his mouth, then closes it. He’s pretty sure if he tries to speak, the only thing that would come out is a high-pitched panicked sound. So he just nods.

“Great,” Jared says as he stands up. He goes over to his bed, taking the laptop with him. “What are you okay with, PDA-wise?”

“Um.” Evan twists his hands together and cracks his knuckles, ignoring the face Jared makes at the sound. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

“Being your fake boyfriend should _not_ be this much work,” Jared mutters under his breath, then asks, “Hand holding?”

Evan must look panicked all over again just at the mention of it, because Jared pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

“Dude, just fucking. Come here.”

Evan blinks at him, eyes wide.

Jared scoots over and pats the spot next to him.

So, despite everything inside his brain yelling at him to _not do it_ , Evan gets up, shuffles over, and perches awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

Jared looks super annoyed at this point, and honestly, Evan doesn’t blame him. He didn’t sign up for this. Or, well, actually, he sort of did. But still.

“I’m putting on El Dorado,” Jared says, already scrolling through Netflix. “And then maybe you’ll act more like a human being. And not be so repulsed by the very thought of having to touch me.”

The “human being” thing kind of hurts, but Evan’s stuck on the fact that Jared chose The Road to El Dorado. As kids, they watched it together more than a handful of times, but Jared doesn’t seem like the type of person who still actively enjoys Disney. (Dreamworks? Evan can’t remember.)

Also, there’s the fact that Jared seems to think—

“I’m not— _repulsed_ by you,” Evan says, bewildered. “I’m just—it’s an anxiety thing, I’m sorry, I swear I don’t…”

He grabs Jared’s hand before he can overthink it, because, well, actions speak louder than words. (Especially when Evan’s the one talking, because nothing he says ever really makes sense.)

Jared looks down at their intertwined hands and barks out a laugh. Evan grits his teeth, wills himself to not be hurt by it, tells himself _don’t be so sensitive, he’s not laughing at you, he’s just laughing because he’s_ Jared.

When the movie starts, Jared smiles (a _real_ smile, so genuine Evan feels like the wind has been knocked out of him) and says, “See? Not sweaty, dude.”

Evan wonders why there are butterflies in his stomach all of a sudden.

 

-

 

In the end, they figure out that the things they’re both fine with are: hand-holding, casual hugs, pecks on the cheek, and if desperate times call for desperate measures (and _only_ if desperate times call for desperate measures), a peck on the mouth.

Evan really hopes it doesn’t come to that.

But at the same time, he kind of...does?

Which is new.

(Their safe word, for if one of them does something the other doesn’t like but they don’t want to give themselves away to other people, is _sweetie._ )

Jared also fills him in on what he told the others at lunch—that the two of them started dating approximately a month ago, when Jared asked him out, and their first date was at the movies.

“At Cinemark, the one across from the Waffle House. We saw Black Panther around seven, and you bought me popcorn because you’re all gentlemanly like that. Afterwards, I drove you home, we hugged good night on your front porch, and then I went home. Very wholesome.”

“That’s—really specific. Do we really need so many details?”

“Have you _met_ our friends? And besides, I already told them all of this stuff, so you kinda have no choice but to make sure you know it too.”

“I...”

“Right. From the top, let’s go over it again.”

 

-

 

About a week later is when they have to actively pretend for Evan’s mom.

Jared comes over. They watch Stranger Things, and Evan keeps getting up in the middle of it to pace around behind the couch anxiously, and he feels really bad because he knows it’s like Jared’s favorite show, but he can’t help it. His brain will not shut up.

Two and a half episodes in, Jared hits pause and sets the remote down on the coffee table with a sigh. “Okay seriously, what’s up?”

Evan grips the back of the couch, leaning his weight into his hands. “I just keep thinking it’s gonna be weird if we _act_ like we’re dating in front of her today because she thought we were dating when we weren’t even actually dating, so maybe we should just act the same as we did...before? When we were just friends. Not that we’re not _still_ just friends, I mean, I know we’re not really dating, oh my god, just—does that make sense?”

“Sure. But she thought we were hiding it before,” Jared says calmly. “So now we have to act like we’re _not_ hiding anything.”

“Right,” Evan says, nodding hard and hating himself. “You’re totally right, I’m sorry, I’m just overthinking things like I always do.”

“When is she coming home, anyway?”

Evan checks the time on his phone. “Um, soon? Like half an hour or so.”

“That’s enough time to finish this episode,” Jared muses, hitting play. Evan sits back down next to him, feeling a bit better, but then Jared _reaches for his hand_ and what little calm he gathered goes flying out the window again. Without looking away from the screen, Jared says, “So that when she walks in—you know.”

If Evan had any spine, he would probably say, _I could just grab your hand when we hear the door open, you don’t have to start pretending more than thirty minutes in advance._ But he likes the feeling of their fingers laced together, the warmth of Jared’s hand in his, so he keeps his mouth shut and tries to direct his attention to the TV.

His mom looks absolutely exhausted when she gets home, but her face lights up when she sees them, and then she actually _cooks dinner._ Spaghetti is pretty easy to make, but still, it’s a step up from pizza and takeout. Jared is very charming all throughout dinner, cracking jokes and shooting winning smiles in Evan’s direction. Whenever Evan’s mom’s does that weird over-the-moon grin, he kicks Evan frantically under the table as if to say _look! It’s working!_

Evan gets it—nothing makes him happier than seeing his mom in a good mood—but he’s pretty sure his leg is going to be bruised all over by the end of the night.

And part of him wishes it were real.

Part of him wishes he could really be having dinner with his mom and his boyfriend, Jared. Not his mom and his _friend_ , Jared, who’s only pretending to be dating him for…

 _For what?_ he realizes. _What is Jared even getting out of this?_

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when his mom clears her throat and says, smiling nervously, “So I know this is going to be awkward, but I have to bring it up.” She pauses, and Evan takes a slow sip of water, thoughts racing as he tries to figure out what she might want to talk about, and then— “Safe sex.”

The water goes down the wrong pipe. Evan coughs violently, beyond mortified. Across from him, Jared’s face has gone as red as his own probably is.

“Uh,” Jared starts.

“I just think it’s something we need to talk about!” Evan’s mom says as she gets up and begins clearing the table, while the two of them stay frozen in their seats. “Are you guys, y’know...?”

“ _Mom,"_ Evan groans, hiding his face in his hands.

“No, we’re not, uh,” Jared says, and Evan can tell that he’s thrown off. “We haven’t really done anything, so…”

“Okay,” she continues cheerfully. “That’s totally fine. You probably already know to use condoms when and if you _do._ And people don’t talk about lube as much, but it’s really important too—not just for the obvious reasons, but also because it can reduce your chances of getting STDs by—”

“Mom oh my god please stop talking.”

She ruffles Evan’s hair. “Okay, okay, jeez. But if you have any questions or wanna know anything else, anything at all, I’m here.” Her smile falters. “And if I’m not here, I’m a phone call or text away.”

Evan stares at her, embarrassment quickly turning into something more like sadness. Luckily, Jared clears his throat and speaks up. “Thanks Heidi.”

She looks at the two of them fondly, hands on her hips. “I’m gonna turn in for the night. Don’t stay up too late?”

“Okay,” he and Jared agree in unison, and she kisses them both quickly on the forehead on her way out of the kitchen.

“I am so, so sorry,” Evan says as soon as she’s gone.

Jared shrugs and grins as if he hadn’t been embarrassed too. He stands and stretches, then heads into the living room, calling over his shoulder, “You wanna pick something to watch? I think we have time for one movie before I have to go.”

 

-

 

At lunch on a Thursday, Jared hooks his chin over Evan’s shoulder and then stays like that.

After a good five minutes, Zoe stops mid-sentence and tilts her head at them.

“You know what? I gotta say it, this makes sense,” she says, waving a hand sort of vaguely in their direction.

“What?” says Jared. His glasses bump against Evan’s jaw.

“You guys...fit. You being together just makes sense, y’know?”

Alana pipes up, “I know, right? I’m _so_ glad you aren’t pining over each other anymore.”

Evan frowns, trying not to fidget for fear of jostling Jared. “Pining?”

“Yeah, you know. All those gross glances in each other’s direction, _especially_ from Jared’s end, the flirting, the dumb inside jokes, the—”

“They still act like that, you know,” Connor cuts in.

“Well _yeah,_ but it’s different now because they’re dating! Instead of sad longing looks, it’s cute, like, ‘I’m so lucky to have him’ looks.”

Except they _aren’t_ dating. So _is_ it different?

Evan thinks his heart might pound right out of his chest. Next to him, Jared is uncharacteristically silent.

“How...” Evan clears his throat. “How long have you thought—or I mean, how long since you noticed that? The—” He takes a second to piece together his thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is how long ago did you notice that we liked each other...that way?”

Alana hums thoughtfully. “Honestly, when I first met you guys. I don’t know. I think I just always had a feeling.”

“Right,” Jared says slowly, and then he’s pulling away from Evan and getting up. “I’m gonna go to the snack bar, anyone want anything?” Zoe opens her mouth to reply, but he cuts her off. “No? No one? Great.”

He shoots finger guns at them, and then leaves.

The conversation continues. Evan distractedly thinks that he sort of misses the weight of Jared’s head on his shoulder.

 

-

 

Jared has started giving him rides to and from school. (“Because it looks weird if you keep walking to school like a nerd, when your insanely cool boyfriend has a car and he could just drive you.”)

After things got weird at lunch a few days ago, Evan thought long and hard a lot about things. He’s come to the deeply unsettling realization that he might like Jared more than a friend.

Jared, on the other hand, is acting like what their friends said never even happened. He’s been his usual nonchalant self, and the way he doesn’t hesitate when he goes for Evan’s hand or throws an arm over Evan’s shoulder tells Evan that he probably does not reciprocate Evan’s feelings. Because how could he be so relaxed about continuing this fake dating thing if he _did_ like Evan in a romantic way?

Then again, the way Jared reacts to pretty much everything never makes sense to him.

But still. Evan absolutely can’t think about that. He can’t get his hopes up. Jared does not like him as anything more than a friend, and that’s that.

Anyway, Jared has been calm and collected for the past few days, but today, as he drives Evan home, he’s tense and uncharacteristically quiet. Usually car rides with him consist of heated rants or loud singing along to whatever’s on the radio. Right now, the silence is stifling.

“Is everything okay?” Evan asks. “Like, you can tell me if I did something that made you upset or—”

“I’m not mad at you, Evan,” Jared says.

“Oh.” He picks at his nails and waits for Jared to continue.

Jared sighs heavily. There’s a few more awkward beats of silence before he says, “I don’t really wanna talk about it, okay, but. I’m not mad at you. Seriously.”

“Okay,” Evan says quickly, nodding. He can drop it.

Jared forces a smile and plugs his phone into the AUX.

 

-

 

A few weeks later, Jared sleeps over for the first time since they started fake dating.

They watch movies until they’re both yawning and unable to keep their eyes open, and then they go upstairs to Evan’s room. Evan is setting up the spare mattress when something occurs to him, and suddenly he’s wide awake and jittery as fuck.

“You didn’t tell our friends about this, right?” he asks slowly.

Jared blinks a few times like he trying to focus. (It’s really cute.) “Huh?”

“Like, did you tell them we’re having a—that you’re spending the night?”

“Uh,” Jared draws it out, “Yeah, I did, I think. Why?”

“Oh my god,” Evan says, hysterical but trying to keep his voice down. He’s not sure if his mom is home yet, but it’s late and if she is, she’s probably in bed. “They think we’re doing it, they think that we’re—” He gestures wildly between them. “Y _ou know!”_

“Oh shit,” Jared mutters.

It’s very quiet for a few seconds.

Jared breaks the silence. “Okay, well, they’re gonna ask for details on Monday!”

“I absolutely can  _not_ handle that,” Evan says shrilly, feeling warm all over at the very thought of him and Jared— _oh my god._

Jared is nodding, and then he says, “Right, which is why I need to give you a hickey.”

Evan turns and walks right out of the room.

“Dude,” Jared calls, voice still lowered like he’s trying to keep quiet. “Don’t be a dick, get back in here. If you want, you can give _me_ a hickey. I guess it doesn’t technically matter who’s doing what.”

Evan takes a long, deep breath and goes back in incredibly reluctantly, stopping in his doorway. “Please explain yourself,” he says, voice strained.

“Okay,” Jared says, spreading his hands. His expression is weirdly very serious. “Obviously they’re gonna want details, yeah. And if they ask, I’m pretty sure you’ll implode of embarrassment and ruin everything. So if one of us has a hickey, no one’s gonna ask. They’ll just see it and be...satisfied.”

“I think I’m going to implode of embarrassment right _now,_ ” Evan mumbles.

“Come on, you know I’m right! A hickey will like, tell them everything they want to know, while still maintaining some mysteriousness. We won’t have to actually _say_ anything.”

Evan wants to say he’s not so sure. He wants to say that makes no sense. He wants to point out that there are definitely some flaws in Jared’s logic. But his brain short circuits, and what he ends up replying with is, in a very small voice, “Okay.”

Jared grins sort of weakly. “Great.”

They stare at each other.

“So who’s doing what?” Jared asks, at the same time Evan says, “I think you should be the one—um. You know.”

“Evan, I can’t read your mind,” Jared says.

Evan shuts his eyes and tries again. “I think it’ll be better if you’re the one doing it to me.”

“Jesus, don’t say it like that.”

“You _know_ what I was trying to—”

“I mean, you make it sound like I’m gonna force myself onto you or some—”

“Oh my god will you just shut up and—” Evan cuts himself off, bewildered.

Jared’s mouth opens. Then he shakes his head, seemingly at a loss, and closes it. And then he laughs.

He’s blushing.

“You’re too tall for it to work like this,” he decides, flopping onto Evan’s bed. “Sit down.”

Evan hesitantly obeys. “So where do you think...?”

“Here, maybe?” Jared’s hand is on Evan’s collarbone. His thumb presses into Evan’s neck. “Dude, your pulse is racing.”

Evan bristles. “I’m _nervous._ And I know you are too, so shut up.”

“Okay, fine,” Jared says. He laughs one more time before that serious expression comes over his face again, and then he leans in. “I’m just gonna go for it. Don’t freak out. But um, if you want me to stop, just tell me and I’ll back off and we never have to talk about this again. Capiche?”

“Capiche,” Evan says, staring straight ahead at the Peanuts calendar on his wall. His heart is threatening to pound right out of his chest. _Capiche_. What a weird word. The first time Evan heard it, he looked it up and learned that it was 1940s slang, originating from something Italian.

Evan snaps out of his thoughts quickly, because Jared’s mouth is on his neck. At first he’s sort of just mouthing against the skin, but then he’s applying teeth and suction and _oh._

Evan should have thought this through more. If it were the other way around, he’d be fumbling and confused and he’d embarrass himself, sure—but he’d also be the one in control. He feels way too exposed like this, too vulnerable. He tries to focus on other things, like the pattern on his bedsheets or the outlet next to his desk or the softness of Jared’s hair between his fingers—

Evan doesn’t remember putting his hand in Jared’s hair, but. It’s there. “Shit, is this—can I—” He swallows. “I mean, is this okay?”

Jared pulls away for a brief second, says, “I don’t care, man,” and then he’s back to doing what he’s doing. What he’s _really good_ at doing. Not that Evan has any frame of reference, but he’s warm all over in the best way possible, and he wants, _wishes_ that he could do this for real. With Jared. He wants to kiss Jared, touch Jared (other than casual side hugs and hand-holding—though Evan has started to enjoy that a lot, too), find out what makes him breathless and shaky, get him to swear and say Evan’s name.

These are very dangerous thoughts to be having. Especially when Jared is—well.

Evan’s breath hitches as Jared digs his teeth in and sucks harder. “Ah,” he lets out, almost involuntary, and then feels his face heat up even more. Jared is sitting back now.

“You good?” he asks. His glasses are slightly askew, his hair is sticking up on one side, and his mouth is...very red. It’s so distracting that Evan has to take a second to compose himself.

“Yes, yeah, more than good,” he answers, fighting the urge to cringe. “Um, is there a mark?”

“Is there—” Jared’s gaze flickers down to Evan’s neck, and he barks out a laugh. “ _Yeah,_ I’d say so.”

Evan lifts his hand to touch the still sensitive spot, and inhales sharply. The feeling of Jared’s mouth on his skin will probably fuel his wet dreams for the rest of his life.

Jared is just staring at him, expression unreadable. “So...is it cool if we sleep now?” He gets up and collapses onto the mattress. “I’m really fucking tired.”

Evan nods, practically jumping up to turn off the light. On his way back to his bed, he trips over Jared’s foot and narrowly avoids falling on top of him. “Sorry, crap.”

They lie in silence for a while in the dark.

“Are things gonna be weird between us now?” Evan asks softly.

Jared gives a short laugh. “Weird for us is nothing.”

“Okay I just mean...weirder than they already are.”

Jared is quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.” Another beat of silence. “Just—go to sleep, dude.”

 

-

 

Jared’s plan, of fucking course, doesn’t even work. As soon as they walk into the cafeteria, Alana screeches, “Is that a _hickey_ _?”_ and then Zoe’s eyes go wide and she says, “Um! Details, now!”

Evan has to put his head down on the table and count to ten while Jared rubs circles into his back.

 

-

 

Jared has been doing this thing lately where he cleans his glasses on Evan’s shirt, claiming that his own “isn’t the right material.” Every time he goes to grab the hem of Evan’s shirt, Evan startles or jerks slightly at the feeling of Jared’s fingertips brushing against his skin, for a brief moment.

“Dude,” Jared says.

“Sorry, sorry,” Evan mumbles, and tries to sit as still as possible while Jared rubs circles into the lenses with his shirt. He looks straight ahead, then glances down at the top of Jared’s head. His hair looks soft. Evan wants to touch it like he did before, and then he’s squirming again at that memory, cheeks flushing.

Jared sighs, puts his glasses back on, leans closer and says, “I literally gave you a hickey the other day and you still freak out whenever I do this?”

Evan’s eyes widen. “Oh my god, _Jared,_ ” he says, looking around frantically—which is stupid, because 1) no one could have heard what Jared said, and 2) everyone who knows them or knows of them has already seen the hickey, so it’s not like it’s some huge secret.

It definitely isn’t a huge secret. In fact, it’s still kind of visible, and Evan’s stopped bothering to hide it. He doesn’t clap a hand over it every time someone passes by, or every time he thinks he feels someone’s eyes on his neck—which is another thing he knows is so stupid, because no one is looking at him, no one is paying any attention to him. He’s just paranoid.

Part of him even wants to...show it off. Wants everyone to know that he has a hickey and that Jared’s the one who gave it to him.

 _Stupid,_ he thinks bitterly after Jared salutes him and turns on his heel, heading to his next class.

 

-

 

Evan wants so badly these days.

He wants his mom to be happy regardless of whether or not he has a boyfriend.

He wants to be better. Just in general. He wants to be not so anxious and not so much of a mess.

He wants to be the one who nudges Jared’s glasses up for him (because they’re always slipping, in a way that borders cute and annoying). He wants to hang out with Jared (and his cat) _all the time._ He wants to keep learning all the little things about Jared that he doesn’t already know.

He wants to be the kind of person Jared could actually love.

 

-

 

The thing about daydreaming constantly is that you start to fixate on that shit pretty fast, and before you know it you can’t stop, and suddenly you’re falling into an endless loop of hating yourself and hating your life and wishing you were dead—which might be a little extreme, but. Everything is extreme for Evan. Even the tiniest of inconveniences overwhelm him and have the potential to send him into a panic attack.

And this? It’s not like Evan can even avoid any of it. He sees Jared _every day._ He has to pretend every day.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise what happens next.

Evan’s always been pretty impulsive. Even as a kid, he would just _do_ without thinking and end up paying for it later, whether it was taking a cookie from the jar before dinner or blurting things out when someone else was talking. (Or, of course, telling little white lies to his mom and his classmates.)

Jared is at his house and they’re sitting together on the couch, studying. And Evan keeps looking over and feeling that rush of affection towards Jared, for the way he chews on the inside of his cheek while he reads and the way he wrinkles his nose every so often in an attempt to fix his glasses, which are sliding down like they always do. Evan likes the cute things about him _and_ the not-so-cute, like the fact that he complains about the homework more than actually working on it.

Jared sighs dramatically and leans back to stretch his arms over his head. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says for the tenth or so time today.

He’s looking at Evan with that stupid little grin on his face, the one that borders cute and not-so-cute, and Evan doesn’t think. He just sets his textbook aside and shuffles closer so that their faces are inches apart. Jared’s smile falters.

“Uh, there’s no one around,” he says. His voice is steady, but he’s blinking rapidly. “And I’m pretty sure we don’t need to practice actually kissing.”

“No, I know,” Evan says quietly, and kisses him.

It’s wonderful, for the briefest of seconds, and then.

And then there are hands on Evan’s chest and they’re not pulling but pushing. _Shoving._ “What the entire fuck, Evan?” Jared says, jumping off the couch and away from him.

“I—” Evan feels sick to his stomach. He can’t do anything but watch, paralyzed, as Jared starts throwing his things into his backpack. “I was just—I mean I thought—”

“ _What,”_ Jared spits, clutching his backpack to his chest. His face is red. “You thought what? That because I agreed to do this whole thing, I might want it for real?”

“I didn’t—”

“You don’t know _shit,_ Evan.”

Jared is walking out of the living room and Jared is in the hallway and Evan is scrambling after him and Jared is opening the front door and saying _fuck you_ as he leaves, and then Jared is gone.

 

-

 

Evan spends the weekend in bed. He doesn’t sleep much, just stares blearily at the walls and ceiling, wishing he could just get his shit together and get up and _do something._ So what if he gave himself away and Jared knows how he feels about him now? So what if Jared doesn’t like him back? He should still be able to—fucking _function._ But he can’t bring himself to get up, so he doesn’t. He isn’t hungry, either, so he can’t even use food as motivation to leave his room.

His mom is working most of the day. She gets home sometime in the evening—maybe six or seven, Evan thinks, judging by the way the sunlight falls across the hallway carpet. (The blinds are closed tight in his room, and his phone is charging on his desk, so.) She asks him why he’s in bed and if he wants Chinese for dinner and he tells her he just isn’t feeling well and to eat without him, and she frowns and presses a hand to his forehead before saying, “Okay, well, I’ll order you some soup. You shouldn’t go to bed on an empty stomach.”

When the food arrives, Evan pulls the covers over his head and pretends he’s asleep. She leaves the container of soup on his side table.

The next day is more or less the same. Evan gets out of bed to pee around eight in the morning, and then he lies curled up in a ball and wonders how the hell he’s going to fix things. His stomach finally growls at noon, so he drinks some of the soup even though it’s kind of gross now that it’s cold. After that, when he’s less hungry and feeling especially desperate, he checks his phone for the first time since Jared left. There’s nothing other than a Washington Post notification and a text from Connor asking for his book back.

And it’s not what Evan was hoping for, but it’s something, so he drags himself out of bed and to his desk to retrieve the book that he borrowed from Connor a couple of weeks ago.

He can’t find it.

He looks through his entire desk, and then his bookshelf, and in his closet and under the bed and he _knows_ it’s not downstairs and even if it was, he doesn’t have the energy to go downstairs—there are twelve steps and he’ll hate himself more with each step and it’ll take forever to get to the living room and he’s a terrible person, just so useless, and now he’s even worse because he lost a book that isn’t even his, and he’ll have to buy Connor a new copy and that requires money which means he’ll have to ask his mom for money and it’s not a big deal, _it isn’t,_ but it’s the cherry on top of the disaster that already is his life, so it feels like the end of the fucking world.

Evan’s room is a mess when he finally collapses back into bed and falls asleep.

In the morning, his mom wakes him up. “Did you lose something?” she asks with a laugh, gesturing around at all the clutter and misplaced items.

“Yes,” he says, voice small as he rubs his eyes. The half finished soup is still there, which, fuck, is embarrassing. “Sorry, I’ll—I’ll clean it up when I get home.”

She smiles at him, but it’s one of those _I’m worried about you but trying to seem reassuring_ smiles. “We have those Trader Joe’s dumplings in the freezer for dinner, if you want.”

“Maybe.”

She hesitates in the doorway. “Do you want me to reschedule your appointment with Dr. Sherman? I’m sure he can fit you in earlier, maybe this week?”

“I’m fine,” Evan says. He hopes he _sounds_ Fine and not like he’s in the middle of a breakdown.

“Okie doke,” she says cheerfully. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Evan replies faintly.

In first period, he finds the book inside his backpack.

Jared isn’t at school. He’s on a college visit with his parents. (It’s out of state, a few hours away, and last week he had told Evan it wasn’t a big deal, that he’s probably going to end up picking the university in their city because they have a better game design program anyway, but like, who is he to turn down an excuse to miss a day of school?)

Evan goes to lunch just to give Connor his stupid book back, and then the sight of Jared’s empty seat makes his throat close up, so he mumbles a quick apology to Connor and Alana and leaves to go cry in the band hallway.

It’s ridiculous how much of a shit time he’s having. And also a little unfair that Jared gets to be somewhere else while Evan is stuck here not knowing if they’re even friends anymore.

“Hey,” comes Zoe’s voice from down the hall. She’s walking out of one of the practice rooms, lunchbox in hand. “I was gonna go to the cafeteria and then Connor just texted me that you were acting weird and left?”

A few more tears threaten to fall. Evan scrubs at his face and looks up.

“Oh,” Zoe says softly, setting her backpack and lunchbox down to sit next to him. “What’s wrong?”

Evan hugs his knees to his chest. “I like Jared.”

“Well—” Zoe laughs, brow furrowed. “He’s your boyfriend, so...why are you sad about that?”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Evan says miserably. He squeezes his eyes shut because he can’t bear looking at her, scared of every possible way she might react. “It was all made up, we were—we’ve been pretending, because my mom thought we were dating and I wanted to make her happy so we just pretended to be boyfriends, and I never meant for it to go this _far_ , like—and don’t even know why I went along with it but it’s too late now and I—I just—”

“Woah, uh, breathe,” she says, putting her hand on his shoulder. He takes a shuddering breath, feeling like his lungs are too small, feeling like _he’s_ too small—he’s small and insignificant and a loser and he fucks everything up and he might lose Jared. Jared, who sometimes seems like the only good thing Evan has in his life, apart from his mom.

“I really messed up,” he tells her.

“Sounds like it,” she says, blunt but not unkind. She’s sort of rubbing his back now. It helps. “Can you explain to me how this happened?” When Evan winces, she shakes her head. “No, I mean, I know you told me but I’m kind of confused. Like, why didn’t you tell _us_ about this whole...fake dating thing?”

“Alana sees my mom all the time,” he says quietly.

“Oh,” she says, drawing it out. “That makes more sense.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds, and then she asks, “You said you went along with it? Does that mean it was Jared’s idea?” Again, before he can answer, she shakes her head and says, “What am I saying, of _course_ it was. And so now you have...feelings for him?”

Evan’s chin is starting to wobble a little. He clenches his jaw and blinks fast, because he does _not_ want to cry again today. Thankfully, Zoe seems to get it, and doesn’t push.

Evan breathes in, breathes out. He focuses on the weight of Zoe’s hand, which is on his arm now. There’s the distant sound of instruments playing over each other. Band practice.

Suddenly Zoe jerks upright, startling him. “Oh my god!”

“What?”

“The hickey!” Her expression is a cross between amazement and confusion. “Was that, like, makeup or something?”

It seems like she already knows the answer, but he tells her anyways. “No,” he says, hiding his face in his arms. He feels warm all over just thinking about it.

“Oh my _god,”_ she repeats. “Evan, you’re an idiot.”

Tears prick at his eyes. “Not really making me feel better?” he says, voice small.

“Dude, I mean he totally likes you!”

“Please don’t,” he gets out. He thinks he might be choking. “I can’t—I can’t let myself think like—”

“No, just think about it. _Why_ would he do all of that if he didn’t feel the same way?”

Evan lifts his head to look at her. Her eyes are wide and she’s smiling a little, open-mouthed. “I don’t know,” he says, feeling very unsure about everything all of a sudden.

Could she be right?

“But I kissed him and he—” Evan’s insides twist violently at the memory. “He pushed me off and started yelling stuff that didn’t really make sense and then he, um—he left.”

“Did he kiss back?”

“ _Zoe."_

“What, this is very important! Did he kiss back at first or not?”

Evan thinks about it. He tries to remember the feeling of his mouth on Jared’s, but all he can really recall the awful terrible horror he felt as Jared shoved him away. All he can see is that look panicked, _angry_ look in Jared’s eyes. All he can hear are the words, _“You don’t know_ shit, _Evan. Fuck you.”_

“I don’t know,” he says again, meekly.

She’s quiet for a moment. “I really think you should talk to him.”

He sighs and scrubs his hands over his face. He’s so tired.

“Guys?” When Evan looks up, Alana’s standing there in front of them, clutching the straps of her backpack. She looks concerned. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Zoe tells her. “It’s...a lot.”

Alana nods and crouches down. “Do you need a hug, Evan?” she asks gently.

Before he can respond, Zoe wraps her arms around him, and then Alana does, too. He exhales shakily and balls his fists in the back of their shirts. “I um—thank you.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Zoe says.

He’s not so sure about that.

 

-

 

Evan goes to Jared’s house after school. Jared's car is in the driveway but no one’s home yet, so he waits on the front porch, twiddling his thumbs and shuffling his feet, trying to resist the voice in his head telling him to just go _home._

By the time the Kleinmans’ minivan pulls up, it’s almost 4:30 and Evan is sitting on the top step with his backpack in his lap, scrolling through Instagram.

Evan quickly stands up when he hears the car doors open and close, almost dropping his phone but catching it at the very last second—clumsy as ever. Jared has rounded the car and is giving him an unimpressed look.

“Evan! What a nice surprise,” Joan says, beaming.

“How’ve you been?” Liz asks, clapping Evan lightly on the shoulder on her way to the door. “How’s your mom?”

“Good, um. Good.” Evan tries for a smile, but it probably comes out more like a grimace. Jared is trailing behind Joan, chewing on his lip. It reminds Evan of a little kid who’s scared to go to school for the first time or something, hiding behind his mom’s legs.

It’s a little weird to think that Jared seems just as scared to have this conversation as Evan is. Comforting, but weird.

Liz unlocks the door, then says, “You both should come over for dinner sometime! It only makes sense, I mean, we haven’t seen Heidi in so long and now that you and Jared are _dating,"_ she grins, "we could make it a regular thing.”

“Wh—” Evan blinks, tearing his gaze away from Jared to look at Liz. He doesn’t know why, but he didn’t think Jared’s moms would know about them. Or...not know, technically. “Sorry, I...that sounds nice. I’ll definitely ask her when she's free.”

Liz glances between him and Jared with a confused sort of smile, before Joan takes her by the arm and says pointedly, “Let’s give them a second alone?”

They go inside, leaving Evan and Jared standing on the porch. Jared won’t meet Evan’s eyes.

It hurts.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” Evan says. “I—should have asked, and besides that, I just. I’m really sorry.”

Jared’s fists clench, and he shoves them into his pockets. He’s wearing green shorts. “So why’d you do it?” he snaps. “Were you just—you thought it would be funny, or what?”

“What? No,” Evan says, shaking his head. “No way, oh my god, I would never do something like that.” If anything, he’d think _Jared_ would have been the type of person to kiss him and then backtrack and claim it was all a joke. Sometimes he forgets that Jared is just as insecure as anybody else. “I... _really_ like you. I like you so much, and I—I wanted—want to kiss you for real, not as a joke, not as a part of this fake relationship thing. But like clearly I misread everything, or I didn’t even really think about your feelings at all, because you don’t want that.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Jared says in a low voice. He turns on his heel and sits down heavily where Evan was sitting before. Evan hovers awkwardly next to him, not sure if he should sit down too.

“Jared?”

“No, let me get this straight,” Jared murmurs, hands covering his face. “You...like me. And you kissed me because you genuinely wanted to.”

“Want to,” Evan corrects without thinking, and then has to resist the urge to slam his head into a wall. “Sorry, shit, I’ll just shut up. But um. Yes, yeah. Please say something?”

A beat of silence.

“I like you too,” Jared says, voice muffled before he puts his hands in his lap and looks up at Evan. “I’ve had a crush on you since fucking seventh grade. Back when you still had a thing for Zoe. I yelled at you before because I panicked and thought you had figured it all out. I thought you were like, giving me shit for it. God.”

“What? No." Evan feels giddy all of a sudden. He sits down next to Jared, bouncing leg up and down excitedly. “That’s—I mean, if you like me and I like you then why don’t we do this for real?”

“We don’t even really _know_ each other, Evan,” Jared says, and his face is all scrunched up like he might cry. “You think we’re best friends but we’re _not,_ we only really started hanging out this year.”

Evan shakes his head to distract from the voice in his head that’s trying to tell him Jared is right. “That’s not true.”

Jared just stares at him, arms wrapped tightly around himself. His glasses sit too low on his nose.

“I know you,” Evan plows forward, and once the words come to him he doesn’t stop, doesn’t try to overthink before they come out of his mouth. “I know you wet the bed till you were seven. I know that you still read, um, Drarry fanfiction? Even though you like to pretend it was just a phase. I know you really love 80s music. I know you’re scared to be vulnerable in front of people. You’re scared to let people in. But you let me in, kind of.”

“Those are just—dumb little things,” Jared argues, but his resolve is slipping. He looks uncertain. “None of that shit counts.”

“I _know you._ And you know me, so can we just, can we please just—” Evan’s vision starts to blur with tears. He blinks fast to get rid of them, but then Jared’s shoulders are sagging and Evan can’t help it. He’s crying again.

“Dude,” Jared says, eyes wide. His hand is on Evan’s elbow, hesitant and shaking just a little. “Dude, don’t _cry_.”

“I’m sorry,” Evan gets out, sniffling and wiping at his face, chest heaving. “I just don’t want to lose you, you mean so much to me, and I understand if you don’t want to date me, but can we please still stay friends? Because you—you _are_ my best friend, okay? I can’t just—not have you in my life.”

“Okay, okay,” Jared concedes. He looks bewildered, and he’s blinking a lot. “Shit, um, are you having a panic attack? Do you need some water? A hug?”

Evan starts to cry even harder at that. There is literally nothing he wants more than a hug from Jared, but he. He can’t say yes to it. His chest tightens, and he rubs a hand over his sternum, trying to get his lungs to fucking work. Jared gets up and opens the door.

“Yeah, I’m gonna get you some water,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

He comes back after a minute with a water bottle and a box of tissues, and he passes them to Evan in a way that’s so endearingly awkward that Evan almost loses it all over again. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t. He wipes his eyes and nose with a tissue. Takes small sips of water. Jared is sort of leaning against the door, gripping the handle tightly.

Evan takes that as his cue to leave, even though he still doesn’t really know where they stand.

“I should go,” he says quietly, getting up and stuffing the water bottle into his backpack. He sets the tissue box on the porch railing because he doesn’t want to risk brushing fingers with Jared.

Jared makes a face but nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Evan says. “Sorry again.”

He heads down the driveway, holding onto his backpack straps for dear life. He’s halfway past the neighbor’s house when Jared says, “Wait!”

Evan turns. Jared is jogging over, glasses slightly askew.

A tiny shred of hope unfurls in Evan’s chest.

“Screw it,” Jared says, stopping a couple of feet in front of him. “I want to be with you. Will you—” He’s blushing he’s blushing he’s _blushing!!_ “God, this is gonna sound so fucking corny, but will you, like, be my boyfriend for real?”

Evan smiles so wide his cheeks hurt. “ _Yeah.”_

Jared’s grin is probably even wider. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Evan echoes, bouncing up and down on his toes.

“Do you wanna try kissing me again?” Jared asks, still grinning. His cheeks are still delightfully pink.

“Promise not to push me away this time?”

Jared laughs loudly before closing the distance between them.

 

-

 

_Text from: Zoe_

_5:08 PM_

the first thing alana said after I told her everything was “boys are so STUPID”

 

-

 

**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please leave kudos and comment if you liked it. comments are Everything
> 
> if you want to see more of angel the cat, check out my fics "only fools fall for you" and "come on baby play me like a love song". (there's also some good liz and joan content in those) (I would link them properly, but the last time I tried to do that it didn't work so. just do it the old-fashioned way and click on my user lol)
> 
> and follow me on tumblr @jaredklein :^)


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